12.6. Invoices

An invoice is the paperwork you send to a customer to request
payment for products or services rendered. GnuCash can generate and track
invoices.

12.6.1. New

To send an invoice to a customer you must first create a new
invoice. To create an invoice use Business → Customer → New Invoice. The
New Invoice window must be filled in appropriately:

Invoice Information - Invoice ID - the
identification number of this invoice. This is your internal number
for this invoice. If you leave it blank, an invoice number will be
generated automatically.

Invoice Information - Date Opened - the
date this invoice was created.

Billing Information - Customer - the
customer who is to receive this invoice. If you remember the company name
you entered in the New Customer window for this customer,
start to type it in this field and GnuCash will try auto complete
it for you. Else, press the Select... button to access the Find
Customer window described in Section 12.5.2, “Find and Edit”. Highlight the customer
you are looking for with a click in the search results, then press the
Select button.

Billing Information - Job (optional) -
associates the new invoice with a customer job (see Section 12.7, “Customer Jobs”).
If you remember the job name
you entered in the New Job window for this job,
start to type it in this field and GnuCash will try auto complete
it for you. Else, press the Select... button to access the Find
Job window. This window is the same to the one described in
Section 12.5.2, “Find and Edit”. Highlight the job
you are looking for with a click in the search results, then press the
Select button.

Billing Information - Billing ID - this
is the customer’s PO Number or other “customer reference number”.
You should use it to identify your invoices to this customer (and
job, if you have one).

Billing Information - Terms - the payback
terms agreement for this invoice. A list of registered terms is
available within the pop up menu. If you specified a default value
for the selected customer, this field is initialized with the
default.

Creating a New Invoice

When you click the OK button, the
Edit Invoice window opens.

12.6.2. Edit

From the Edit Invoice window you can enter an itemized list of
things you sold on this invoice, in a manner similar to how the account
register works.

Edit Invoice Window

There are 15 columns in the Invoice Entries
area:

Date - The date this item was
sold.

Invoiced? - X means
the item is attached to this invoice, an empty box means the item is
not attached to this invoice. The item is attached for you when you
proceed to the next line item.

Description (optional) - is what the item
or service is called.

Action (optional) - is a user defined
field. You can place Cost Center information here, or use one of the
3 predefined actions, Hours, Material, or Project.

Income Account - selects which income
account is credited with this income.

Quantity - tracks how many of the items
you sold.

Unit Price - is the unit price of the
item.

Discount Type - is the type of
discount:

$ means Discount
is a monetary value

% means Discount
is a percentage.

You can click the field to toggle between the discount
types.

Discount How - the discount can be
computed as follows:

> means the discount applies after
tax.

< means the discount applies
before tax.

= means both discount and tax are
applied to the pretax value.

You can click the field to change the setting.

Discount (optional) - is the total
discount, in monetary units or percentage, depending on
Discount Type. You can leave it blank for no
discount. Any default discount you specified for the customer will
be automatically entered for each new item.

Taxable? - is this item taxable?
X means yes, a blank field means no. You can
click the field to toggle the setting.

Tax Included? - has the tax already been
included in the unit price? X means yes, a
blank field means no. For example, if there is 1 item of $100 with a
tax of 5% then:

If Tax Included is empty, then subtotal = $100 and tax =
$5.

If Tax included is set (X), then
subtotal = $95.23 and tax = $4.77. The computation is:
Subtotal = Total / (1+taxrate) and Tax = Total - Subtotal
= Total - (Total / (1+taxrate)).

Tax Table (optional) - this is a pop up
menu of all the available tax tables. If you make the item taxable,
then this table is used to compute the amount of tax. The tax table
determines tax percentages and the accounts to which tax is
charged.

Subtotal (uneditable) - is the computed
subtotal for this item (less tax).

Tax (uneditable) - is the computed tax
for this item.

When you have finished entering all the items, you can
Post and print the invoice.

12.6.3. Post

When you finish editing an invoice and are ready to print, you
must Post the invoice. The invoice does not have to
be posted immediately. In fact, you should only post an invoice when you
are ready to print it. Posting an invoice places the transactions in an
accounts receivable account.

The Post Invoice window appears and asks you to enter
information:

Post Invoice Window

Post Date - specifies the date for the
transactions entered into the accounts receivable account.
By default this is the invoice’s Date
Opened (see Section 12.6.1, “New” for
information about that date).

Due Date - is the date on which payment
for the invoice is expected.

If you specified payment terms when you created the
invoice, the date is calculated according to selected terms, and
the entry field is insensitive.

If you did not specify payment terms, enter the expected
payment due date here.

Description - is an arbitrary
description. When invoice transactions are placed in the accounts
receivable account, this description is entered in the memo field of
those transactions.

Post To Account - selects the accounts
receivable account in which invoice transactions are posted. You can
select the account from a list of existing A/Receivable
accounts.

Accumulate Splits - determines if invoice
items which transfer to the same account are combined into a single
split for that account or entered individually. For the sample
invoice which sold Nails and a Hammer, the setting affects post
results as follows:

Checked (splits are accumulated) - a single transfer of
$575.00 from the Income:Sales account is recorded.

Not checked - the transaction created in the A/Receivable
account, shows two transfers from Income:Sales account $100.00
and $475.00. The memo fields in the splits indicate the sale of
Nails and the Hammer (the item descriptions entered on the
invoice) respectively.

12.6.4. Find

To find an existing invoice, use the Business → Customer → Find Invoice
application. From the results of the search, you can select an invoice
to edit or view.

Note

Before you can edit a posted invoice, you will need to
Unpost it.

One of the design goals in GnuCash’s Account Receivable system was
to allow different processes to get to the same state, so you can reach
an invoice from different directions based on the way you think about
the problem:

You can search for the customer first, then list their
invoices.

You can search for invoices by number or by company
name.

You can list invoices associated with a customer job.

12.6.5. Print

After you post an invoice, you should print it and send it to your
customer. To print an invoice use File → Print Invoice menu item.

An example of the default GnuCash invoice print output is shown
below.

Invoices can also be printed from the main window by selecting
Reports → Business Reports → Printable Invoice from the main menu. The
resulting report window states that no valid invoice is selected. To
select the invoice to print:

Use the OptionsToolbar button or select
Edit → Report Options from
the main menu.

12.6.6. Assign Starting Invoice Number

By default, GnuCash starts with invoice number 1 and increments from there. You can
manually type an invoice number into the text box each time you create
an invoice, but this gets tiring and sooner or later leads to duplicate
numbers.

You can change the starting invoice number if it is important you.
Use File → Properties, access
the Counters tab, change the Invoice number value to be
one less than your desired starting invoice number and click the OK button or the
Apply button.